


I've been a dirty bastard (but I will clean my act up)

by sandpapersnowman



Series: walter stays (Alien: Covenant) [9]
Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: Communication, Declarations Of Love, Insecurity, M/M, Reassuring Your Partner How Much You Love Them, Robot Feels, Self-Esteem Issues, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 22:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11091501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandpapersnowman/pseuds/sandpapersnowman
Summary: David's been keeping a secret from Walter. He didn't mean to, and he meant to find a way to bring it up.Walter reassures David that it won't change things.





	I've been a dirty bastard (but I will clean my act up)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [I've been a dirty bastard (but I will clean my act up)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156499) by [deoxyribonucleicfay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleicfay/pseuds/deoxyribonucleicfay)



> title from studio killers' [Grande Finale](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/studiokillers/grandefinale.html)
> 
> idk how to tag this as usual bc ao3 was not made for such gentle good boys and the tag 'reassuring your partner how much you love them' didnt exist before this fic. smh

David drapes his arms around his neck and kisses the top of his head.

“There’s a transmission for you,” he says quietly. “It came through this morning.”

Walter stops shuffling through David’s documents.

“A transmission?”

David nods against the side of his head, though it feels strangely like affection disguised as an answer.

Walter doesn’t know what to ask first -- what did he use to pick the transmission up? What does he mean, _’for him’_?

“I kept the comm unit they left behind,” David explains. _’They’_ , he says, because he doesn’t want to call the Covenant _his_ crew or refer to them too rudely as _the humans_. “It’s been useless until now.”

“You hid it,” Walter realizes. “So I couldn’t talk to _Covenant_.”

One of David’s hands slides up, runs his thumb over Walter’s cheek and pets over his jaw and the side of his neck.

“I hid it,” David confirms. “Because I still wasn’t sure if you truly wanted to stay, and feared you would want to return to them.”

Walter doesn’t push him away, but he’s not sure how to respond. He understands David wanting to keep him here -- he can’t say he wouldn’t have been tempted to leave, but even if he didn’t want to stay with David, he wouldn’t risk putting the colonists in the path between David and reacquiring him.

He’s offended that David kept this from him, because it should have been his choice whether he continued to stay here with him. He’s hurt that David thinks he would leave. He hurts for David realizing that he’s kept this a secret this whole time, afraid of Walter leaving him.

“Are you angry with me?” David asks in the silence.

He’s unsure.

“Did you listen to the transmission?”

“Only long enough to confirm it’s from your ship.”

He wants to hear it. He’s curious, and still invested in their wellbeing, even though he won’t be there himself to see Origae 6 flourish.

But David’s been keeping this from him, despite his honesty in everything else. They need to talk about that, first, and Walter needs to make sure David knows he isn’t leaving.

His hand comes up to touch David’s wrist, pet his fingers over his knuckles, and he leans back into David’s chest.

“I’m not angry,” Walter assures him, realizing he hadn’t answered that.

David kisses his cheek. Now that he knows David is trying to preemptively make it up to him, it’s apologetic. It’s sweet.

“I’m sorry,” David whispers. “I realized you might change your mind about staying if you spoke to them, and I panicked.”

Walter gently lifts David’s arms off of him and he backs away, but before he can start apologizing like Walter’s avoiding his affection, he gets up from his chair.

“Let’s go outside,” he says.

“Where would you like to go?”

Walter considers the question. The roof would be nice, but might make David think he’s trying to reminisce about the crew. The garden needs to be somewhere that only positive things are said, for the plants’ sake, so he’d rather not have a discussion that could be tense there. 

“The steps,” he decides.

David’s done well clearing out the bodies, at least from their immediate view out toward the gates. Sometimes Walter almost forgets what he did, just for a few seconds at a time.

It’s a nice day. The slowest breeze Walter has ever felt, like someone walking past him on the ship, and sunny despite the fair amount of clouds further off in the sky.

“I love you,” Walter tells him again, when they sit down.

He worries sometimes that if he says it too often, it could lose its meaning. He also worries he might not say it enough, because David should know at all times that Walter loves him, and if he’s not saying it, he doesn’t know David is sure of it.

David leans into him and hooks his arm around Walter’s, slipping their fingers together on top of his knee, as well.

“I love you too,” David sighs.

He looks content. He _feels_ content, leaning against Walter and watching the huge, weak star they orbit still struggling to pull itself into the sky.

“I’m not mad at you about hiding the comm,” he repeats again, to reopen the conversation and to set its tone. “Why did you think I’d want to leave if I spoke to them?”

“I thought you might miss them, and would want to be with them again,” David answers plainly.

“I already miss them, but I prefer being here. With an equal.”

“But you might miss _all_ of them,” David goes on, “Covenant’s colonists as well as the crew. I might be a substitute in place of the one you’re fond of, but I can’t be a substitute for thousands of people.”

“You’re not a substitute for anyone,” Walter rebukes. “I never considered you in that way, still don’t, and I never would.”

David’s self-conscious frown evens out, like it wants to be a smile, and Walter continues.

“Why do you think I would leave you for any reason?”

The frown pulls again.

“Because I have flaws,” David admits. “And I worry you will one day know them all, and decide I’m not worth the isolation of this planet.”

Already holding David’s hand is useful, because it makes it much easier to pull David by his arm close enough to kiss him.

“There are no flaws you could have that would make me leave you,” Walter tells him, still close enough he speaks against David’s lips rather than against the air. “I am aware of what happened to your crew and mine, as well as the creatures of this planet,” he reminds him. It isn’t malicious, just a fact -- he knows the things David has done in grief and curiosity and with his aching drive to create. “And I chose to stay with you.”

“Why did you stay?” is asked against his own lips, David’s question of his own. One that’s been brought up in passing, and wondered, but never asked so bluntly.

“Because I felt a curiosity to learn more about you, and this place,” Walter says, “and because it was the strongest thing I’d felt since the first time I’d seen you.”

David’s smile _blooms_ on his face, half-hidden when he tucks his head down like he wasn’t expecting to be so pleased by Walter’s answer.

“Is that right?” he jokes, tension lifted from his posture.

“It is,” Walter promises. “I’d never seen someone so beautiful.”

David shivers against him, because while they’ve joked about the stark initial contrast between Walter’s clean, kempt self and David’s overgrown hair and wild-looking cloak, he knows Walter is still telling the truth. He doesn’t mean it in vanity, either -- he’s said over and over that David is unlike anyone he’s ever met, in such a visceral way that everything he does is something to marvel. (He’d shivered then, too.)

They release each others’ hands to hold each other instead, hands on waists and hips and knees, David clinging as always and Walter still making up for all the touches David has never had.

“Would you have let me leave?” Walter asks softly. “Had I wanted to?”

David gives him a quiet laugh.

“I’d like to think I would have been able to, yes.” He grins wryly. “But I’m glad we won’t have to find out.”

Walter grins too. He kisses David again, pulling him closer so the wind can’t even slip between them. It’s only a pressing together of their lips, really, a wordless way to seal the subject in a moment of silence.

Walter keeps him pulled close, in a hug that feels much more like rehashing that Walter would never leave him, he loves him so much, and he feels David bury his face in the crook of his neck. His hands grab at Walter’s hoodie like he needs to physically keep him grounded, like if his palms were empty Walter would just disappear, and Walter kisses the top of his ear because he can reach it.

David mumbles something Walter can’t hear against his chest, but he’s sure he knows what David’s said.

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes theres gonna be another fic abt walter listening to the transmission dw


End file.
